PASADENA – A small subdivision of 23 tract houses, built in the middle of nowhere by two developers who had a hard time selling them has become the centerpiece of the city’s latest historic district.

A group of houses was built around 1925, ultimately became one of the city’s toniest neighborhoods, and is now officially the Weston-Bungalowcraft Landmark District.

Pasadena’s 18th historic neighborhood, built on Annandale Road from plans drafted by Rex Weston in the Bungalowcraft pattern book, is a one-of-a-kind in the city, Planner Kevin Johnson said.

“There definitely are scattered individual houses from pattern books, and they’re part of the city’s history. But this is probably the earliest example used as a grouping of houses,” Johnson said.

The idea of tract housing didn’t really take off until after World War II, Johnson said.

“It’s a beautiful street, but they are modest houses compared to Greene and Greene-designed and larger houses” in other historic neighborhoods, Johnson said. “But they do add an important aspect to the city’s history and not only architecturally – the way they they were developed is important to the city.”

Bill Woods, a 24-year resident, took over the 10-year landmark designation process after the original applicant – and avid district researcher – Paul Secord moved to New Mexico.

“It was unusual,” Woods said of the development of “funny little … faux Tudor and Spanish-style” 1,400-square-foot houses.

“The (house patterns) were carefully selected for the district after the old Colorado Street Bridge opened in 1913,” Woods said. “At that point there was a vineyard and the Annandale Golf Club where my house is now.”

The flat area beside the Arroyo Seco, made accessible by the bridge, soon attracted developers’ attention, Woods said.

A photograph from the time shows the houses lined up in an otherwise empty area.

The five lots on the west side of Annandale Road were developed by A. Edison Carter, and the Southern California Improvement Company developed the 18 lots on the east side; all were built to five patterns from the Bungalowcraft book.

But the small subdivision wasn’t an immediate success, Woods said.

“What appears to have happened, on this side at least, is the guy built these houses and over-priced them,” he said. “At $5,000 they were too high for the market so they sat empty for a year or so.”

Property records show they finally sold out in the “low $4,000s,” Woods said.

“Even back then it was a relatively well-to-do crowd” that bought the houses, Woods said. “There was a fairly well-known silent movie star who was the first owner of a house a couple of doors up.”

Digging into the history of the subdivision became “strangely addicting” once he took over from Secord, Woods said.

“Over the years I’ve accumulated from Paul a bunch of stories,” he said. “And I’ve heard stories about the people who lived here and something about how these houses came together, but relatively little about the developer. But the guy who did the plan, Rex Weston, he was a fascinating character – a real Southern California character of the 1920s. He was just a draftsman who went out and marketed thousands of houses in the Southwest U.S.”

Weston’s designs were the “whole basis of how so many neighborhoods in California and the West look,” Woods said. “We went through his plan book and found all of our house designs.”

West – who “went through three wives, including one film star and an equestrienne” – left a lasting mark on the West, Woods said.

“Here’s this guy, participating in the real estate boom in Southern California in the 1920s, and his fingerprints are everywhere. No one recognizes it, so I love the story,” Woods said.

Many of the original houses have been enlarged over the years, some even given second stories, but Johnson said the alterations have been done in “a sensitive manner” that leaves the original designs recognizable.

And although not everyone in the district wanted the restrictions of historic designation, Woods said, the required 51 percent voted in favor, and it won’t affect anything that can’t be seen from the street.

“I guess there’s a little protection here,” he said of keeping the neighborhood’s character intact. “It also says my neighbors will do the same thing – and we all did move here for that.”

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